The Alternative
by Gezzyvee
Summary: This is a story about Jacob and Bella, who never seem to get the chance they deserve. Of course, certain things have to happen in order for them to get their chance, and certain things will always happen to make their lives more complicated. please R&R!
1. Loss

**The Alternative**

This is a story about Jacob and Bella, who never seem to get the chance they deserve. Of course, certain things have to happen in order for them to get their chance, and certain things will always happen to make their lives more complicated.

Rated T for a teensy bit of language and scenes of intense psycological distress. Please R&R!

These characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, and not to me. I have no rights to these characters.

**Chapter 1: _Loss  
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Edward was holding my hands in his. We were in the meadow, his meadow.

"Okay," I said teasingly, "What's the surprise?"

"Well," Edward sighed, his eyes closed, the hint of a waver in his voice. "It's your birthday Bella, and I've decided to give you what you want." He opened his eyes, his uncertain topaz eyes, to gaze into mine. It took me a moment to comprehend, but then the realization hit me: what it was that I wanted. I gave a little gasp - I had hardly expected him to give in so soon. But he was leaning in to kiss me, so I raised my face towards his. He passed my lips without brushing them, and I readjusted so he could reach my cheek, my collarbone... His perfect features landed at the base of my neck, and he kissed me once gently before his lips parted,

and he bit me.

It was gentle, no worse than a shot at the doctor's office. He pulled back, and the expression on his face was worried and intense. I gazed up at him for a moment, trying to find some word that I could use to express my thanks, my love for him. I think it was the calmest moment of my life, there, gazing into Edward's golden eyes with little universes of depth behind them.

Then the pain started. I hadn't noticed the creeping, tingling feeling that had been spreading through my left shoulder and up around me ear. When the burning started, I wasn't ready. It moved much too slowly, following the tingle. My heartbeat shot from slow and steady to emergency mode, and my breathing kept pace with it.

Edward saw the panic flood my face. "Bella, Bella listen to me!" He took my face and held it between his marble hands. "Bella, it doesn't last long, I promise..." he was fading. His velvet voice was losing volume, his beautiful face blurred in my vision as the pain and fire throbbed in my temples and swam behind my eyes. I closed my eyelids and tried to free my head from the cold grip that held me, but those pale hands held fast and Edward's voice intruded again in my world of pain. "_Bella!_" he yelled, "Bella! _Bella, I love you, I'll love you forever, I'm here with you forever Bella, I..._"

I couldn't take it anymore, and that's when I began to scream. It helped, the screaming. It drowned out everything - the cold hands gripping my shoulders like vices, the throbbing in my temples. It even helped to smother the agonizing fire that I could feel from my head to my feet, feel coursing through my veins causing me to writhe and thrash on the ground. I felt it grasping and choking my heart, and I knew it wouldn't end until the heartbeats ceased.

My breath would run out, then all the agony would return and I would gasp and drag at the air until my lungs, full of fire, threatened to burst. And I would scream again, as long and loud as was humanly possible. Or, later, as was inhumanly possible. There in that meadow, faintly, beyond the screaming and the agony and the throbbing of my temples, I felt those cold vices leave my shoulders. Vaguely I heard growling, vicious snarls that were almost indiscernable from mine. Then there were ripping noises, and dull thuds like heavy objects hitting soft ground. More than once something passed me at such speed that a breeze would follow, and each gust of wind reawakened the fire in my skin and it burned hotter and faster, and I screamed with more passion.

Then I was being dragged over uneven ground, and it felt like the electric current coursing through my spine had tripled in strength. There was more agony as I was swung up into the air, the breeze assaulting me like millions of tiny needles. I thumped heavily over theback of something that moved, pitching and heaving. With each movement the pain was more alive, moreso even than I was, first at my arms and then at my back and between my shoulderblades. But always, always worst at my core, at the very center of my slowly dying heart.

I couldn't keep the concept of time anymore, not after that. The jostling movement continued for a while, then I was lurched to the ground. Nothing else touched me after that, though a few times I had a notion of light; ebbing and flowing around me. All the time the fire continued to rack my body, but eventually I was too exhausted to scream anymore. Though I continued to snarl and gasp when stabs of intense anguish would rip through the rest of the pain.

Somehow, eventually, I either fell asleep or passed out. When I opened my eyes again, the light was fading softly - it was twilight. I drew in a deep breath and sighed, wondering if the pain would come back. I was surprised to find that I missed it. Then, whtever I'd been laying on, it moved. It sat bolt upright, and then its arms were wrapped tight around me, and its familiar husky voice whispered in my ear,

"Oh, Bella..." And I realized.

It was Jacob.

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His arms were so tight they were crushing me, but I didn't protest. The pain felt comforting compared to the confusing emptiness in my chest. But I almost wished he would let me go, because he smelled awful.

"Bella, Bella..."he whispered desperately into my hair, shaking ever so slightly. We both sighed at the same time, which made me smile.

At that moment, I remembered the rest of my life. Everything that had ever made an imprint on my mind returned in a flood. I was a little girl playing on the floor in my room, and mom and Charlie stood holding hands in the doorway as they watched me. My mom's place back in Arizona. The drive to Forks from the airport with Charlie. The last glimpse I'd had of Edward's face...

Edward.

I became confused. My last memory had definitely been in the meadow, with Edward. Now I was somewhere in the forest . . . with Jacob. I was with Edward, and there was pain in my neck, but more painful was the look that had been on his face. Dead-on fear, mingled with something I couldn't comprehend. After that, I couldn't remember anything.

"Jacob," I said softly, still trying to think things through. He didn't let me go all the way, placing his always warm hands on my shoulders and holding me away from him. There was an expression on his face that I didn't try to understand, since my head was so full of one thought.

"Edward..."

Hurt flooded into Jacob's eyes once I'd said it. He released me and turned away, his back hunched and his fists clenched at this sides.

"Jake?" I asked, so soft he couldn't have heard me, though I know he did. I was still so confused and empty...

He spoke without turning around, without moving, "After all of that... after all the pain, everything I've done...and the first thing, the only thing she thinks of is still that _leech_, that... that _fucking vampire!_"

Oh, I'd done it again. I'd hurt Jacob without meaning to, without even knowing. I stood up, which was surprisingly easy, and went to put my arms around him. My hands clasped tight around his chest, and I leaned my head into the space on his back between his broad shoulderblades. Then I sighed as I felt some of his tension drain away.

I asked again.  
"Jake?"

He was silent.

"Jake... what happened?" He was silent again, for so long that I was about to ask another question when he said, almost calmly,

"He bit you, Bella."  
A pause, then,

"You're a Vampire.

The memory of the pain came back then - it hit me like a falling piano. The screams, the movement, the light, all so vivid they were almost as bad as they had been when they were real, though much more fleeting. I gasped. I didn't feel myself let go of Jacob, but I must have, because I was standing there remembering, and he was facing me with that ocean of hurt moving like waves in his eyes, and everything was clear as crystal.

But not quite.

"Were you there?" I was cautious as I asked, not sure if I wanted to know.

"I found you . . . after . . . and took you here, where no one would hear you. I carried you on my back. It's been three days."

"Three days . . ." So that was the light, the passing days. And the movement, that must have been Jacob carrying me. But... but what? There was something else, something that I couldn't remember because I was distracted... because... because why? When I found the reason I knew was right, it came as a shock:

Because I was _thirsty._


	2. Hiding

**The Alternative**

Welcome to chapter two! Thanks to those of you who supported me, or else I probably wouldn't have continued this story. Hooray peer pressure! Anyway, please bear with me through this chapter since it's a bit boring, there'll be more action in chapter 3, I promise.

**Chapter 2: Loss**

"Had any sign of Edward yet?" Jasper asked me as we cruised a Seattle shopping mall.

"Not even a glimpse," I said, frustrated. "I can't see him at all, or Bella either. That means they're with the werewolves, but I have no clue what they're up to. I certainly didn't see Edward planning anything...

Except for the fact that Edward had decided to turn Bella into a vampire. I had known right away, since I'd been watching for it. I had to say I was surprised; I hadn't thought he would cave in so easily. But whatever happened, I sure couldn't see it now. What I _did_ see was a pair of adorable designer boots in that shop window... but Jasper distracted me.

"It's been three days since they disappeared."

"Mm."

"I think tomorrow I'll skip school with Emmet and we'll start a search."

"Mm-hm..."

We were passing by a storefront full of cowering puppies. He stopped slowly, a pace later I did too, turning questioningly towards him. I saw what he would do but played along anyway.

"Aren't you usually the talkative one?" he joked, lifting my head with his finger under my chin. I grinned, then stopped grinning so he could give me a peck. We resumed walking, Jasper holding my hand, and I was vaguely aware of the people in the crowd who had seen us - the fat old man wh would go home and beat his wife because he was filled with jealousy; the 13-year-old girl who was inspired to ask out the boy she liked tomorrow, who would reject her and call her a slut; the housewife who would go home and weep for her teenage daughter, whom I reminded her of, who had died in a drunk driving accident. Seeing the lives of humans could be a curse - I woud go crazy if I hadn't learned to block it all out long ago.

Jasper and Emmet left the next morning. I saw that they wouldn't find anything, though they traced both sencts up to that meadow. Not surprising. I'd seen Edward there many times but I never told anyone about it, because I respected him and I knew how he liked to have his 'secrets'.

We had a family meeting when they returned.

"Smells like shit up there," Emmet growled.

"It's as you suspected, Alice. Their scents are strongly mixed with that of one of the werewolves, along with a smell we didn't recognize. The werewolf and the other scent lead off into the woods again, but Edward's and Bella's don't."

"You didn't follow the other scent?" I said it a little too loudly - I was getting panicky from not being able to see.

"We got distracted," Emmet muttered.

"Emmet ended up tracking a herd of deer. He killed most of them." Jasper shot Emmet a half-amused, half-annoyed glance. I saw that he helped a little bit in the end. I had wondered why I'd seen them surrounded by deer carcasses. Occasionally I wondered at how either of them stayed true to our lifestyle, Emmet especially. It was my personal opinion that he only did it for Rosalie's and Carlisle's sakes. Anyway, the other scent had to be followed.

"I'm going back up there." I left before anyone could offer to join me - they were too irritating right now to put up with.

In the meadow, I found the place where the werewolf Jacob's scent trail led off towards the higher mountains. There _was_ another scnet, but it was very faint; the wolf must have been carrying whoever it belonged to becasue his was the only scent on the ground, the other was only in the air.

So, aware that I would at the very least pass close to werewolf territory, I began tracking the scent.

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I was _thirsty. _I needed blood, and there was nothing else in the world except for that fact. I glanced around depserately for something, anything, that I could kill. Nothing. No birds, no squirrels, not a deer or a frog or a lost house cat...

_Ahhh, look! There's one! A human!_

Isn't that Jacob?

_A human! A big one, too! I'll bet it puts up a decent fight..._

Jacob is a werewolf, your friend, and NOT on the menu.

_Nooooo, a human! And warm, wet, sticky, delicious blood courses through its veins..._

Jacob explained to me later how my eyes had flashed from black to gold, and to black again. The courage of his next action likely saved both of us.

He stepped across the distance between us and his arms were around me once more, his cheek against my hair.

_Ugggh! I'm not eating that, it smells nasty!_

Part of me wanted to barf. Part of me wanted to cry. Part of me wanted to run until I couldn't feel anything. Part of me still wanted to kill.

The crying part won. Come on, Bella! This was Jacob - MY Jacob! My own personal sun. How could any part of me want to destroy him? I was disgusted, furious with myself, and so I cried, clutching onto the back of his shirt and bawling into the front of it.

Later, we sat leaning back to back as the sun began to dip low behind the trees. My mind was a little bit clearer, but it was full of questions. I decided to start with an easy one.

"Jacob?"

"Hm?" he started just a littel. The sound of my voice must have pulled him from deep thought.

"Where exactly are we?"

"Umn - " it took him a second to adjust his brain to a conscious state, " - We're about a hundred miles North of the Canadian border."

I paused as it sank in. "We're in Canada? ... ... ... Was it really necessary to go that far?"

He got up and moved to sit down facing me, taking my hands in his, his head bent downwards. I leaned forwards so our foreheads were touching.

"You're a newborn vampire," he said finally. "I don't really know anything about it, but I know your leech friends have to practice being able to not kill humans. I took you far away so that if you . . . y'know . . . sort of, lost control . . . and got away from me . . . then at least you wouldn't kill anyone you really cared about."

"Oh." He had a very good point.

"And not many humans live around here, so there wasn't much chance of anyone hearing the... the screaming."

Another good point. I had to remember to thank him for thinking so clearly under pressure.

"Plus, the pack can't hear me once I'm a certain distance away."

Right, I could imagine how that would be important to him. But what he'd said, about me killing people, bothered me a bit.

"So I wouldn't kill anyone I really cared about."

he nodded.

"But . . . what about you?"

then he gave a sarcastic little laugh, which shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.

"I mean it!" I said, moving my head to look at him. I wanted him to be my Jacob now, not the embittered Jacob that Sam and I had created. My voice fell to a whisper, "I wanted to kill you . . ."

He was silent, so I tried another question. "How did you know where I was? In the meadow, I mean."

"I heard you when you started to scream. I wasn't very far away." Still sulking Jacob. I sighed, knowing 'not very far away' meant at least ten miles. I knew it would hurt him, but there was one more question I had to ask.

"Jacob?" He didn't look at me. He didn't even move except to breathe. It was like he knew what was coming.

"Where is Edward?"

He closed his eyes. It looked more like a wince, really. He started to answer more than once. "Bella, . . ." then, "I . . . . ." He sighed, frustrated, and looked into my face. I was in pain again, to see how much it hurt him to answer.

_"Bella?"_ someone gasped. Both my head and Jacob's snapped towards the sound - neither one of us had heard anything approaching. Then it was my turn to gasp:

it was Alice.


	3. Realization

**The Alternative**

oh my gosh, I'm sorry it took me so freaking long to update!!! hits self with frying pan. I haven't forgotten about the fic, I promise! Especially with the news of the 4th book, Breaking Dawn, due out August 2!!! I'll be in line at midnight. Lol, maybe I'll meet you there! This chapter's only half-finished but hopefully I'll have it done later tonight.

**Chapter 3: Realization**

"Bella?" I gasped. Why hadn't I been able to smell her? Why was it that I still couldn't? Why was she past the Canadian border, sitting with... holding hands with... the werewolf Jacob? Thoughts were flying through my head at triple-lightning speed. Was she cheating? No, Bella would never cheat . . . she looks so _pale!_ Did he hurt her? Was he kidnapping her? Ugh, he smells awful. Is that why I can't smell her, is his scent covering hers? Why would - -

"Alice!!" Bella ran and threw her arms around me, interrupting every thought. I was frozen to the spot. She was hugging me, and I could smell her, it was unmistakable. But it wasn't her... it was... it was that second scent, the scent I had tracked with Jacob.

Triple-lightning brain function kicked in again. How does a human's scent change? What's that guilty look on Jacob's face for? Where in the _hell_ was Edward? Last I knew, he was planning . . .

Oh.

Edward had been planning. Her scent had changed. She was hundreds of miles away from civilization.

I took her shoulders and held her away from me, in order to look into her eyes. Staring into those golden-topaz discs rimmed thick with black hunger, every piece fell into place.

"Oh, Bella..." I hugged her tightly, and I could tell she knew that I understood.

Except, all the pieces weren't in place. What was with the mutt? And WHERE was Edward?

Then I went rigid with sight. It was Jasper and Emmet. They were on the reservation, tracking - they must have felt bad about doing such a shoddy job before - on the outskirts of the reserve, the werewolve's territory. A charred pile of ashes; A campfire? No...

I watched them both take in the scent. They realized at the same time. They stared at each other for a moment, wide-eyed, Jasper's mouth hanging open, Emmet's clenched tight shut. Then they both howled in rage. All three of us were certain now:

Edward was dead.

These were his remains. On werewolf territory. They had killed him.

A look of absolutely horrified disgust contorted my face when I next looked at Jacob. I was _so_ tempted to kill him, but Bella was in the way. Of course, it would be stupid to kill him without proof that he was the one who had killed Edward, even if the sound of ripping his limbs from their sockects would have been so gratifying...

So I ran instead, taking Bella's hand and dragging her along with me.

"Hey, wait!" Jacob called after us. I ran faster. I didn't have to see in order to know he would follow us, but I could run faster than him, even dragging Bella along. Anyway, he would stop as soon as he reached the edge of our territory.


End file.
